


Hazing

by biblionerd07



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Bass and Miles making a system to deal with crime, Mentions of brief non-con, Militia days, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-05
Updated: 2014-08-05
Packaged: 2018-02-11 20:36:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2082303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biblionerd07/pseuds/biblionerd07
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bass and Miles have to think up a punishment when they find some of their militia men hazing another recruit, but it hits too close to home to be totally objective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hazing

**Author's Note:**

> So I just found this in my files and apparently never posted it. I have no idea when I wrote it but the militia days are always fun so here we are.

Miles walks up to his tent to find three guys sitting on the ground outside of it, hands tied behind their backs and quaking with terror. He raises an eyebrow.

“What’s going on?” He asks.

The men exchange scared looks before one pipes up, “General Monroe brought us here, sir.” It’s not really an answer and normally Miles would berate the man (not really much older than a boy, really—he’s probably only seventeen or eighteen) for not giving him a direct answer to a direct question, but he figures if Bass is mad enough to tie them up it must be bad.

He walks into the tent to find Bass pacing furiously. “We have to punish them, Miles.” He says without even looking at him. His hands are gesturing wildly. “Make an _example_.”

“What’d they do?” Miles asks, folding his arms across his chest. This jittery anger isn’t very typical for Bass; Bass is more of a slow burn kind of guy. So it must be something serious. Bass stops pacing but doesn’t turn around to face Miles.

“I caught them hazing another recruit.” Bass says quietly. Miles’s breath catches in his throat and suddenly he’s back in time, he’s a Marine fresh out of boot camp who’d gotten a little too big for his britches and thought he was hot stuff. Some of the higher-ranked guys had decided to teach him a lesson one night, and he’d woken to sour breath in his face and a hand over his mouth, someone holding his legs so he couldn’t move, and a sneering voice in his ear telling him he’d learn to take orders before a rough hand slipped down his shorts.

Bass had woken up and caught sight of Miles’s eyes, wide and scared and tearful with shame, and had sprung out of bed and knocked the guy off Miles’s legs before the other guy could do more than roughly take Miles’s dick in his calloused hand. Bass had been screaming death threats to kingdom come, and it was the first time Miles had seen absolute hate and fury on his best friend’s face—a look becoming almost familiar to him these days.

“Uh, same kind of stuff?” Miles asks hesitantly. His mouth is dry. Bass raises a hand and rakes the hair back from his forehead, a sign of distress.

“Worse.” He says shortly, and Miles has to bite his lip to keep from freaking out.

“Okay.” Miles is trying to think but his breath is starting to come out in little gasps.

“We are not having this shit in our Militia, Miles.” Bass fumes. “We’re not letting this slide and sweeping it under the rug. We’re going to make them _pay_.”

“How, Bass?”

“Let’s castrate them.” Bass isn’t joking and Miles fights an eye roll.

“That’s a terrible idea.” He says. “We barely have enough men as it is. We can’t risk any of them dying at our own hands.”

“Miles, if they’re going to fuck around like that we don’t want them.” Bass finally turns around and Miles can see how tightly wound Bass has gotten. His hands are balled into fists, but it’s his eyes that tell it all, just like always.

“Bass. They’re not the same guys.” Miles points out gently. Miles had been hesitant to file a report, but Bass had been insistent. Nothing had happened to the guys, and Bass had never let it go.

“But we have _power_ this time, Miles. We can do something about it.” Bass raises his arms and then drops them helplessly. “People can’t just get away with that.”

Miles is trying to block out the memories, but his hands start shaking. He’d been afraid to fall asleep, afraid of who would come through the door. Bass had let him try to work through it on his own for two nights before climbing into bed with him, gathering Miles into his arms, and wordlessly running soothing hands through his hair until Miles drifted off. Shame had followed him for months, and every time he saw the guy’s jeering face he’d shrunk a little, backed away. Bass had nearly been court-martialed for fighting the guy so many times.

“Miles.” Bass’s soft voice pulls him back to the present and he looks into those blue eyes, trained on him so intensely.

“I’m fine.” Miles says automatically. Bass tilts his head and studies Miles for a minute, letting him try to get himself under control. Bass always lets him try to fix himself alone, because he knows Miles needs to try. But after a minute of Miles’s jaw clenching and heart racing, Bass sighs and closes the distance between them, pulling Miles into his arms. Bass is the only person ever allowed to hug Miles. Bass is the only person ever allowed to know when Miles needs it.

Bass doesn’t say anything, just rubs slow circles on the nape of Miles’s neck, while Miles inhales the strength Bass is giving him. They’ve been buoying one another up since before either of them can remember, and when Miles feels weak for needing help he reminds himself of Bass clinging to him the night his family died, falling into his arms with Shelley’s blood on his hands. They give and take as needed—always have.

When Miles pulls away, Bass doesn’t fight him but instead goes back to pacing. “What are we going to do?” He asks Miles.

Miles mulls it over for a minute. “I don’t know.” He finally shrugs. “We could fine them.”

“Miles, that’s not good enough. They don’t even have anything to take.”

“Well, we could…” Miles hesitates. Bass isn’t going to like the idea. “There’s always corporal punishment, you know.”

Bass makes a face. “What, like whip them?” Miles shrugs. Bass considers for a minute and Miles can see him weighing options in his head.

“Okay.” He finally says. “I don’t like it, but there’s not much else we can do. But we have a trial first.”

“You gonna appoint some JAGs or something?” Miles asks with a laugh. Bass rolls his eyes.

“Miles, we have fifty soldiers. I don’t think we need a JAG. We’ll be the judges and jury. The victim will tell us what happened and show us any evidence. The men can speak if they have anything to say in their own defense. Then we’ll decide.”

“Won’t you have to testify?” Miles points out. “If you were a witness.”

“Shit, this is getting complicated.” Bass groans. “I _did_ see it. I could just order it.” He pauses to think again. “No. No, we’re not going that route. Trials. I just won’t be a judge. It’ll be you. Should we have a panel? You and…I don’t know, Jeremy?”

Miles shrugs. “You’re the brains of this operation.” Bass rolls his eyes.

“I’m the brains of this part, _kinda_ , I _guess_. But you’re the military brains.” He reminds Miles. Miles shrugs again and Bass shrugs back, imitating him with a sassy look on his face. Bass sighs. “Okay. That’s what we’ll do. You and Jeremy will hear the case. I’ll testify, too.”

“How many lashes should we give them?” Miles asks. Bass winces a little at the reminder of how they’re doing this.

“Shit, I don’t know. Twenty?”

“That’s a lot.” Miles says.

“Maybe too many, without a doctor.” Bass agrees. He runs a hand through his hair again. “Ten. And let’s make fifteen the max anyone can get. Ugh, I’m going to have to write all this shit down.”

“Who’s going to do it?” Miles asks. “Maybe…should the victim do it?”

“I kinda like the idea. Would you have wanted to?” Bass looks at him seriously. Miles thinks about it.

“No.” He finally says. Bass looks surprised. “It doesn’t change what happened. It would just make him hate them more. And himself.” He adds quietly, prompting Bass to squeeze his shoulder.

“Okay.” Bass says. “That’s the plan.” He blows out a breath. “Wow. Lashes. Who’d have thought it would come to this?” He asks the universe at large. Then he laughs a little. “It’s not really a fair trial now that we’ve sat here and talked about it.”

“Yeah, well, next time we’ll do better.” Miles says with a shrug.

“Part of me doesn’t think they even deserve a fair trial.” Bass has an ugly look on his face and Miles knows he’s in the past again. They never talk about that night.

“Bass.” Miles makes Bass look at him. “I’m fine.”

“I was supposed to have your back.” Bass shakes his head. “Can you imagine if we lived that way now? Both of us sleeping at the same time?” Even with the sentries and Militia, they still took turns keeping watch in their tent. They weren’t entirely sure they could trust the men they had.

“Well, you woke up.” Miles says simply, uncomfortable with the conversation. He starts to cross the tent to leave.

“Miles?” Bass’s voice stops Miles. It’s a voice Miles knows only he hears—scared and small, tired, world-weary already after witnessing far too much bloodshed in thirty-two years. It’s the only voice that can make Miles actually fully stop and turn all the way around.

“What is it, Bass?”

“I don’t want to do the whipping.” He says. “I know I’m one of the generals, and you can’t because you’re hearing the case, but…I don’t want to.”

“I thought you would.” Miles is a little surprised. If they’d had the assholes from their first station here, he was sure Bass would want the honors.

“I—that’s why I don’t want to.” Bass admits, looking at his feet. “Because I _do_ want to.”

Miles gets it in a second and stares at Bass, who won’t look at him. “Okay, Bass.” Miles says after a long silence. “We’ll have Jeremy do it.”

Bass nods and Miles pauses at the tent door. He’s been in varying shades of worry over his best friend for the last year, since the night Shelley died and Bass went off the rails and butchered a whole camp. Miles has been trying to shield Bass from as much of the actual fighting and bloodshed of the Militia as he can, because sometimes it shocks him a little how much Bass _isn't_ bothered it. He's glad Bass realizes it, as well.

“We’re doing the right thing.” Miles says softly before leaving the tent. It’s his constant refrain these days, reassuring himself and Bass, pushing Bass into expanding their territory, telling Bass why they have to take more land and gather more ammunition, telling himself why he has to rile Bass up sometimes to bring out the dark parts of him.

He just wishes he were more sure that it’s the truth.


End file.
